November 16, 1975: Sunday

I wish to thank John G. Saunders for the graduation travel alarm clock. It makes a very good pocket watch.

Ten meters of core in four hours. Keeps me very busy. Cal has to stay up to help me catch up. I’m going to stay up to help him. Unfortunately, they get the rod stuck and spend the rest of the day lowering the casing.

We talk to Dr. Treves over single side band. They’re bringing out a radio technician with the Mogas this afternoon.

Then things start to happen about two o’clock. Two helos circling the camp, one with Mogas underslung. Six crewmen, including Lieutenant J.G. Sluys (for which we named the iceberg Sluysberg and 1A is called Bergsville, of course), Kathy, Dr. Treves, Howard, two radio technicians, a VXE-6 Commander, Paul Dayton, John Oliver, and two Holmes & Narver employees.

The pilot skidded to a stop, landing like a real airplane. We stood outside the Jamesway and applauded.

Kathy wants to see our white quartz sandstone.

“Our what?”

Henry had relayed last night that we had white quartz sandstone. Gees.

While Kathy and I walked over to look at it, I mentioned something about all the tourists out today.

“Oh, am I just one of the tourists, now?”

“No, you’re still one of the family.”

She said “ahhh” and leaned her little bod against mine, almost putting her head on my shoulder.

She’s having trouble with our log sheets, describing and assigning position according to depth. I think she’s taken on more than she is really capable of. I don’t know if its to impress someone (Peter?) or just because she wants to.

So while the madhouse was swirling for two hours (H&N enjoying, radio technicians technicianing, pilots sitting around drinking coffee, Gupwell drinking, Dr. Treves getting things all disseminated or gathered back together, and everybody trying with Kath), Cal and I try to get things straightened out with the logging. She’s only up to Run 12 and was worried about 200 percent recovery in Run 8.

So when things were quieted down I told Kathy, “What you need is Peter.”

I new immediately I’d phrased that question wrong. She looked at me. I opened my mouth and she said, “Oh, to help with the logging.” Like I meant something else when I said she needed Peter.

It’s one of those rare moments when you realize you’ve touched on something that needs to be discussed, but it’s not the right time nor place. Nor maybe it never will be.

Peter is returning tomorrow, incidentally.

They brought the arm exerciser that’s been hanging around the laboratory because we’re getting fat on Lloyd’s cooking. Art DeVries is coming back out. He’s bringing us some mawsoni.

I explain my moral objections against covering up just to present a certain image to a pressman. I hate the idea of hypocrisy, even if it’s over something as insignificant as Oil Company signs. The paranoid jerks that think people can’t take a joke ought to be expelled from the bureaucracy.

But if Dr. Treves says to do it, I guess we do it.

Cal stated our position fairly well. “We’ll see that it gets done, but we won’t push it.”

Some of the boys are pretty upset, really, but were talking it over. We must persevere in the face of adversity.

I carried Kathy’s survival bag out to the helo. That was a dumb thing to do. But we talked about Antarctic Oil. I guess Hamish has talked to the Times reporter. He said he was a “real bastard.” So Van Reeth and Hamish advised us not to do anything outrageous because he’s probably out to get us, just looking for something to run off at the mouth about. A fault finder to a fault. Troublemaker. Dave B. had nothing to do with this request. At least openly, which is surprising.

I can’t buy that about him out to get DVDP or NSF or the Navy. But it may be that he’s like that, wanting to explode some nonsense about wasted money or non-scientific endeavors. I’ll know when I meet the guy which way things lie. Presently we’re thinking of ways to pervert petty authority. We’ll wait to see whether petty authority is the Times reporter or Van Reeth and Bresnehan. Hamish is a good guy. If it’s the Times reporter, then Dave B. is on our side, too. I hope it’s that way, even if I do have more faith in Senior Science Editors than I do in Dave Bresnehan.

Oh, well. Just do what we feel is right. It’s a sort of a M*A*S*H episode, really.

Dr. Treves, Kathy, Howard, Dayton, and John went to Black Island. Our radio wasn’t broken. It was the antenna in McMurdo. Figures.

They fixed the single side band radio.

Jack came back out. Leon is staying in town.

It’s a relief to be able to talk over 590.

At 8:30 p.m. Cal switched on the single side band. McMurdo was talking to Jerry (54). He wanted to know when the helos fly tomorrow. They talked awhile, then their transmitter conked out. So Calvin went to bed.

Sidebar: Both Dr. Treves and Henry think I’m Cal over the radio.

Then Henry came up (57) and called McMurdo. No answer. So I (66) called 57. Fifty-seven wanted to know when the helos would fly. I talked to him awhile about what we’ve been getting for core. Fifty-seven wanted to know if we’d heard from 54. So I called 54. Fifty-four could hear 66. Could 54 hear 57? Yes. We had a three way station going. I offered to talk to Mac Center at ten o’clock and then have them come up and I would pass on the information. They both said it wasn’t that important. Then McMurdo Station came back on the air. They’d been listening to us. They wanted to know if 56 had come up (George Denton). No. So they shut down. Then 56 came on, and 66 asked him to wait while I called Mac Center from 590 to tell them to get McMurdo Station back on single side band. But McMurdo Station came up, gave out helo times and everything is all hunky-dory.

They had problems with the generator today. So I’m the electrician, walking back and forth between the cook tent and the generator at the drill rig, plugging the extension cord back into the generator every time it vibrates out.

I talked to Mac Center at midnight. Dr. Treves was back from Black Island and he was there to see if we were all O.K. I told him that Denton, Henry, and Jerry were all O.K. He said that I ought to just take over the radio scheds. I told him that would be doing his job, so they’d have to pay me more money.

Cal got up at twelve and relieved me. He hasn’t gotten much sleep lately, odd hours, doing things that needed done that I can’t do because I’m day shift.